Windows 8 hurting PC market

LONDON – Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013, down 13.9 percent compared to the same quarter in 2012, according to market research firm International Data Corp. The year-on-year contraction marked the worst decline since IDC began tracking the PC market in 1994 and also marked a fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year shipment declines, the company said.

The PC industry's attempts to adopt touch capabilities and ultraslim systems have been hampered by a weak reception for Windows 8, the firm said. Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system is putting significant numbers of people off buying personal computers and making them more likely to turn to tablet computers, the firm said.

"At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market," said Bob O'Donnell, vice president of clients and displays at IDC, in a statement. "While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI [user interface], removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices."

David Daoud, research director for personal computing at IDC, said the size of the reduction in PC shipments was "surprising and worrisome."

The U.S market fell to 14.2 million PCs in 1Q13, down 12.7 percent year-on-year and down 18.3 percent compared to 4Q12. The quarterly shipment number is the lowest since the first quarter of 2006, IDC said.

Most of the major PC vendors fared dismally. Two exceptions were Lenovo and Apple. In the United States, Lenovo outperformed the market with double digit year-on-year growth compared to the market's double-digit contraction. Shipments in Asia/Pacific declined, however, keeping Lenovo's overall growth flat. Apple fared better than the overall U.S. market, but still saw shipments decline as its own PCs also saw competition from iPad tablet computers.

XP SP3 is/was bulletproof and could have lasted another 5 years in the business market. Microsoft need REPEAT sales, not just new ones so they make profound changes on a regular basis out of greed.This time it turned around and bit them bigtime, and they probably deserve the pain. I use WIN7 happily, and will resist WIN8 for as long as possible. Lesson learned? Probably not.

Hi Rick, I'd like to add the qualification that PC sales are falling because you can only get Win8 on them. If you could have a choice of XP, W7, and W8 we would see less people holding off buying a PC. I've been rebuilding my PC's ever since Vista came out needing me to get a new printer and a lot of other stuff. Win7 made things a little so better I bought one to run my milling machine, but my main office computer needs to run $22,000 program which won't run on Vista/W7/W8 which means I keep rebuilding it instead of buying a new one. I think copyright laws for SW should be changed such that once a publisher no longer supports a particular program it should lose copyright protection. Then we would see DOS thru to W8 all sold side by side and MS (the company, not the disease) would be forced to listen to customers.

I'll let you in on a little secret, there's a free utility written by some lifesaver that makes a W8 PC operate like a W7 or XP PC. It still has the bland eye tiring Aero look but at least things operate the way they used to. It doesn't fix the SW incompatibilities they introduced, but at least you can operate it. Go to http://classicshell.net/. I have it on my wife's W8 laptop and a W7 computer I use to drive my milling machine. One word of caution, last time the windoze autoupdate ran it disabled the add-on and I had to reinstall it. I'm still looking into how I can stop that.

I'll let you in on a little secret, there's a free utility written by some lifesaver that makes a W8 PC operate like a W7 or XP PC. It still has the bland eye tiring Aero look but at least things operate the way they used to. It doesn't fix the SW incompatibilities they introduced, but at least you can operate it. Go to http://classicshell.net/. I have it on my wife's W8 laptop and a W7 computer I use to drive my milling machine. One word of caution, last time the windoze autoupdate ran it disabled the add-on and I had to reinstall it. I'm still looking into how I can stop that.

Absolutely Duane, they made the same blunder when they completely changed Office to the ribbon I/F. Everybody had to retrain at imense cost or simply not upgrade which is what I decided. I use Office 2000 and guess what it still types letters and does spreadsheets. Now with the major OS UI change in W8 we have something that is so "something for everybody" that it's disfunctional for everyone. I have a Windows XP PC and an Android tablet and the UI shortcomings on the tablet make me switch to the PC for these blogs even because of quirks. If I was using W8 I wouldn't have a fall back position :-(. Why do I use XP? I use a PCB layout program that costs $22,000 and won't run on W7 or W8 so I don't upgrade for cost reasons, that $58 W8 upgrade would cost me $22,058, too expensive for an OS. On XP I can run DOS programs right up to WinXP programs, and then I hit a wall. I think there's going to be a future in making new PC's work with the old OS. :-) If it weren't for this MS would have made money on me upgrading to W7 ages ago, but now even if they were giving away W8 I wouldn't take it.

Working as a Microsoft authorized refurbisher, I can state that sales are at record highs and have been since Jan 2013. Simple explanation the refurbished PC market with Windows 7 Professional is booming.

Retired higher end core 2 duo and Athlon X2 *(or better) 3gb memory and a minimum of 200gb drive space is apparently a viable alternative for buyers disenfranchised by the tablet centric Windows 8 release, and simply looking to do the basics in key & mouse oriented desktop environment .

Seeing as how OEM manufacturers for reasons of their own no longer offer up Windows 7 as a chioce when purchasing a new PC. I can only assume this trend will continue until some "must have innovation" sways buyers back towards new purchases.

Is Media center still free in this version? "usually when purchasing a media center PC". Can I set up pop email accounts from my office at home? And ocassionally can I create multiple backups if I need to. Can I play a dvd when i take it home? Will this version run XP Mode?

Fortunately we can answer "yes on all fronts" as opposed to the unfortunate soul at a retail outlet. Who has no recourse at that point but to touch the screen and slide metro to and fro. I really feel bad for them, honestly having to try and pedal a desktop with amazing hardware specifications, and a watered down cartoonish tablet centric OS. Which barely utilizes the hardwares potential and makes it difficult (difficult as in not quite impossible) to operate and navigate efficiently.

I'm sure some one will state that Windows 8 is easy to use. I have to agree if your using it on what it's designed for it is easy. But if your attempting to acess control panels on a desktop it becomes painfully apparent that it's simply not as fluid as it's predecessor.